CBY Book Club: Blog Tour Guest Post & Giveaway

About the author Holly lauren

Holly was born and raised in a small town in North Georgia. The third of four children, Holly grew up telling stories to get herself out of—and her siblings into—trouble. When she was eight years old, she penned her first publication: a newspaper called Sunny Dayz News. While she didn’t sell any actual copies, her sympathetic grandmother did peruse through the edition at least once.

When Holly isn’t dreaming up new plotlines for her next book, she enjoys breakfasting at Picnic Café in Dahlonega, Georgia with her (handsome) husband and their two (adorable) daughters.

Author Links:

Website ¦ Facebook ¦ Twitter

Guest Post: 5 YA couple scenes I love

My sister and I are always highlighting scenes and quotes on our Kindles and sharing them with one another. I am going to share 5 of our favorites “couples” scenes below. So, actually, that title should say we love instead of I love. (But if my sister were writing this, she’d probably take all the credit.)

BE WARNED. WE ARE GIRLY AND SILLY AND BASICALLY LAME.

1. Jace and Clary from City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

"How did you know I had Shadowhunter blood? Was there some way you could tell?"

The elevator arrived with a final groan. Jace unlatched the gate and slid it open. The inside reminded Clary of a birdcage, all black metal and decorative bits of gilt. "I guessed," he said, latching the door behind them. "It seemed like the most likely explanation."

"You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me."

He pressed a button in the wall, and the elevator lurched into action with a vibrating groan that she felt all through the bones in her feet. "I was ninety percent sure."

"I see," Clary said.

There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put a hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. "What the hell was that for?"

The other ten percent," she said, and they rode the rest of the way down to the street in silence.

2. Tris and Four from Divergent by Veronica Roth

“You think my first instinct is to protect you. Because you're small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But you're wrong."

He leans his face close to mine and wraps his fingers around my chin. His hand smells like metal. When was the last time he held a gun, or a knife? My skin tingles at the point of contact, like he's transmitting electricity through his skin.

"My first instinct is to push you until you break, just to see how hard I have to press." he says, his fingers squeezing at the word break. My body tenses at the edge in his voice, so I am coiled as tight as a spring, and I forget to breathe.”

3. R and Julie in Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

As she dampens my shirt with sadness and snot, I realize I'm about to do another thing I've never done before. I suck in air and attempt to sing. “You're . . . sensational . . . ,” I croak, struggling for a trace of Frank's melody. “Sensational . . . that's all.”

There's a pause, and then something shifts in Julie's demeanor. I realize she's laughing.

“Oh wow,” she giggles, and looks up at me, her eyes still glistening above a grin. “That was beautiful, R, really. You and Zombie Sinatra should record Duets III.”

I cough. “Didn't get . . . warm-up.”

4. Mara and Noah in The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

“Have you kissed many boys before?" he asked quietly.

His question brought my mind back into focus. I raised an eyebrow. "Boys? That's an assumption."

Noah laughed, the sound low and husky. "Girls, then?"

"No."

"Not many girls? Or not many boys?"

"Neither," I said. Let him make of that what he would.

"How many?"

"Why—"

"I am taking away that word. You are no longer allowed to use it. How many?"

My cheeks flushed, but my voice was steady as I answered. "One."

At this, Noah leaned in impossibly closer, the slender muscles in his forearm flexing as he bent his elbow to bring himself nearer to me, almost touching. I was heady with the proximity of him and grew legitimately concerned that my heart might explode. Maybe Noah wasn't asking. Maybe I didn't mind. I closed my eyes and felt Noah's five o' clock graze my jaw, and the faintest whisper of his lips at my ear.

"He was doing it wrong.”

5. Peeta and Katniss in Mocking Jay by Suzanne Collins

“Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?" I tell him, "Real.”

And, because I am a shameless writer, here’s one of my favorite scenes from my debut novel, TEMPUS, out now:

BONUS: Zay and Chapel from Tempus by Holly Lauren

Chapel made a complete circuit, peeking through the breaks in the stream, but she still didn’t see him. Had he left her there? The thought burned a hole through her excitement.

The song changed again. This time it was something more current. A woman singing about going around and around.

“Tell me now, tell me now, tell me now, tell me now you know.”

Chapel pulled her hair over her shoulder and wrung it out. She felt cold for the first time.

“Don’t know how to feel about it. Something ‘bout the way you move.”

She backed up to the center of the ring, making herself visible. She wondered if she should leave.

“Makes me think I can’t live without you, and it takes me all the way.”

“Chapel.” His voice was right behind her.

“I want you to stay.”

She turned slowly. Met his eyes.

“I want you to stay.”

All pretense of play was gone as his fingertips brushed against her chin.

"You're not at all what I thought you'd be,” he said.

Her heart thundered in her ears, along with the pulsing water around them. "What did you think I'd be?"

He drew his dark eyebrows down. "I thought you were just another girl."

She swallowed. "But instead I’m . . .”

“Not." He dropped his hand, stared at his fingers.

His breath was warm against her cheek as he stepped even closer and leaned his mouth toward hers.

She was paralyzed.

Not by fear. Not by indecision. But by the feeling that the moment was unique. That it was monumental for them both. That they were lowering their shields, holstering their weapons—at least for that perfect span of time.

He kissed the side of her temple, just over her trio of freckles. When he leaned back and studied her, water droplets from his hair showered her like rain.

“Zay,” she whispered, and her voice, her always sure, always steady voice, shook. “I want—” She didn’t finish.

“I want, too,” he said simply.

Then she closed her eyes. His hand came around the back of her neck, and with his thumb, he angled her jaw toward him.

“So beautiful,” he whispered.

Tempus

Author: Holly Lauren
Genre: New Adult Fantasy
Publisher: GMTA Publishing
Language: English
Format: eBook and Paperback

Chapel Ryan isn't crazy. At least, that's what she's been trying to convince herself of for most of her life. But after being hallucination-free for three years, Chapel finds herself facedown on her English classroom’s gritty linoleum floor. When she looks up, everyone around her is suspended in animation. Mouths hang open mid-yawn, feet hover mid-cross, Ms. Freeman’s arm flexes mid-sentence diagram. It's another hallucination. Or, is it?

Chapel prepares to tear herself back to reality when something happens. Something that has never happened before in any of her hallucinations--someone moves. And not just any someone—it’s the new guy with a scar over his lip and a reputation as black as his perfectly styled hair. And all of the sudden Chapel's white-knuckle grip on her life has slipped, and with it, her assurance that what she's experiencing isn't real.

Grab your copy of Tempus!

Amazon ¦ B&N